Microsoft Wins Best Legal Department of 2010 | Corporate Counsel
It was a holiday gift ten years and billions of dollars in the making.
On Dec. 16, 2009, Microsoft Corporation’s legal department settled the company’s longest and most expensive antitrust legal battle. In a major concession to European regulators, the software giant agreed to open its Windows operating system to rival Web browsers.
Microsoft’s general counsel, Brad Smith, and his legal team spent months last year hammering out the details of the 61-page settlement with the European Commission, the European Union’s executive body. By fall, Microsoft’s legal department had held 24 videoconferences and 34 conference calls with E.C. lawyers. “We wanted to be seen as a company that would work with regulators,” said deputy general counsel David Heiner, who heads the antitrust group and led much of the negotiations.
Some have called the settlement one of Smith’s crowning achievements. He and his legal team ended more than a decade of close scrutiny by European regulators. The software colossus can keep doing business across the Atlantic, and the stage is now set for better relations with Brussels. “There could have been an endless succession of slug-it-out battles to the death, and instead Microsoft elected to make some perhaps unwelcome but nonetheless significant concessions,” said Ian Forrester, a partner at White & Case who represented Microsoft in Brussels. The case, he said, is “a really extraordinary piece of legal history.”
The settlement was also symbolic for the company’ s legal team, which has set out to prove that it can resolve disputes amicably, despite Microsoft’s reputation for aggressively fighting legal disputes to their bitter, final end. And much of that effort has focused on building relationships and listening to what the other side wants, and fears. “We have tried to make that a defined part of how we train people to negotiate — in any context,” Smith said. “That is not always successful, but has been widely successful for us.”
Since Smith took the helm of Microsoft’s in-house legal department in 2002, he’s led a campaign to recast his company’s pugnacious image and come to terms with both regulators and Redmond’s fiercest competitors. Last year, for example, along with resolving the Brussels imbroglio, the department helped put together a friendly partnership deal with Yahoo! Inc. after months of acrimonious takeover discussions. The E.C. agreement was the culmination of Smith’s diplomatic offensive.
That’s not to imply that Microsoft has gone all touchy-feely. It remains a formidable legal opponent, especially when it comes to protecting the company’s most valuable asset — its intellectual property. Last year the legal department won two precedent-setting patent defense victories on appeal. Meanwhile, it stopped several consumer lawsuits from getting class certification.
Those litigation successes are among the many reasons we have awarded Microsoft’s lawyers the accolade of Best Legal Department of 2010. It's the fifth time we’ve given out the award, and, as usual, the competition was extremely tight. Corporate Counsel’s writers and editors spent days debating, arguing, and exchanging sometimes heated e-mails. After sending reporters to interview the finalists, we confirmed our ultimate choice.
The 2010 Am Law 100 – The American Lawyer
It could have been worse. That,s the best that can be said for the performance last year of The Am Law 100, the top-grossing law firms in the nation. Three of the four key categories we,ve measured for 25 years–gross revenue, head count, and revenue per lawyer–fell, while profits per equity partner (PPP) barely increased by 0.3 percent, or $3,463, to $1.26 million.
But on average, even the bad results weren’t nearly as dire as many firms had feared just a year ago.
THE CHARTS
For the first Time since 1994, Baker & McKenzie surpassed Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom for the number one position on our gross revenue chart.
The downward trend continued for Am Law 100 firms in 2009 as more than half posted drops in revenue per lawyer (RPL), our best measure of a firm,s financial health.
Sixteen Am law 100 firms had profits per partner (PPP) of $2 million or more in 2009, the same number as in 2008.
Compensation – All Partners (Top Ten)
The average pay for a firm’s entire partnership, both equity and nonequity; in 2009, 42 Am Law 100 firms posted declines in CAP.
Value Per Lawyer ranks firms by how efficiently they generate profits. For the fifth year in a row, Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz tops our list.
via The Am Law 100 2010.
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Google CEO: Were now paranoid about security | Relevant Results – CNET News
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Google learned some hard security lessons after it was attacked late last year by hackers, CEO Eric Schmidt said Monday.
“Google is now particularly paranoid about that,” Schmidt said during a question-and-answer session following Googles Atmosphere 2010 conference before about 400 CIOs. After the company learned that some of its intellectual property was stolen during an attack that originated from inside China, it began locking down its systems to a greater degree and accelerated plans to move to Web-based systems like Chrome OS netbooks.
The attacks took advantage of a flaw in Internet Explorer 6 that was quickly patched, although the damage had been done. More than 30 U.S. companies were believed to be targeted by the attacks, but Google was one of the few that publicly identified itself as a victim because “we decided we had to tell people as a warning,” Schmidt said.
via Google CEO: Were now paranoid about security | Relevant Results – CNET News.
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How Altria Is Winnowing Out Fake Marlboros – BusinessWeek
Cigarette smuggling is booming, in part because New York and 21 other states have raised cigarette excise taxes in recent years. On top of that, the U.S. government increased the federal tax on cigarettes last year by 159%, to $1.01 per pack. A pack now typically sells for about $10 in New York City, more than double what it cost 10 years ago, and the state is considering yet another excise increase.
The high levies, meant to help close huge budget gaps and discourage smoking, have had the unintended side effect of spurring the illicit market. One passenger car filled with Marlboros bought in low-tax Virginia and driven up Interstate 95 to resell in New York can yield more than $30,000 in profit, says Crisanto Perez, a senior official with the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, & Explosives.
In Asia, Altria employees have begun to build an intelligence network to combat the counterfeiting problem. The company cites academic research estimating that factories in China manufacture 400 billion knock-off cigarettes a year. Altria has hired detectives to try to infiltrate the international distributors that sell Chinese fakes to mom-and-pop shops in the U.S. The company says it will funnel the information it gathers to government authorities.
Back in the U.S., Altria has 21 employees in its brand integrity unit, which it created in 2002. They are assisted by outside contractors hired nationwide. The company even has given nearly $2 million over the past eight years to cash-strapped public police departments in such places as Los Angeles and Suffolk County, N.Y., to help fund contraband investigations.
Tax collectors have their own concerns. New York currently loses $1 billion a year because of cigarette tax cheating, according to a 2009 study by the New York Association of Convenience Stores. Across the country, tobacco excise revenue lost annually to smuggling totals $5 billion, the U.S. Justice Dept.'s Inspector General concluded last year.
via How Altria Is Winnowing Out Fake Marlboros – BusinessWeek.
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Toyota Documents Show It Knew of Pedal Flaws in 2006 | BusinessWeek
Toyota Motor Corp. knew about flaws that could cause unintended acceleration more than 3 1/2 years before it recalled cars and trucks to fix the defects, according to company timelines.
Toyota, the world’s largest automaker, learned that floor mats could entrap accelerator pedals as early as Feb. 7, 2006, and that pedals could stick five months later, according to documents dated March 24 that were submitted the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and obtained today.
The timelines show what Toyota has said was a slow response that led to the recall of more than 8 million vehicles worldwide starting last year to repair the two types of acceleration- related defects.
The first report was from a model year 2005 Prius hybrid “regarding floor mat interference with an accelerator pedal,” according to the documents, which were sent by the carmaker to the safety agency.
Toyota appointed a chief quality officer for North America and gave the regional officials more authority in making safety- related decisions following U.S. inquiries into the recalls.
“We are not going to elaborate on any documents provided to NHTSA,” Toyota said today in an e-mail statement. “We’ve already acknowledged on several occasions that the company did a poor job of communicating during the period preceding our recent recalls.”
Toyota, based in Toyota City, Japan, began recalls for the two pedal-related defects after an Aug. 28 Lexus sedan crash killed off-duty California Highway Patrol officer Mark Saylor and three family members when a floor mat jammed down the accelerator pedal.
via Toyota Documents Show It Knew of Pedal Flaws in 2006 (Update2) – BusinessWeek.
Northwestern Offers Foreign Students a Fast Track LL.M.
Who says you need a year to earn a Master of Laws degree?
Northwestern University School of Law on Tuesday announced a new program through which foreign lawyers can complete an LL.M. in just 15 weeks — the shortest program of its kind.
“We think it’s innovative,” said Janet Garesche, director of the school’s LL.M. and tax programs. “For people who can’t spend an entire year in the U.S., its a good option to learn the basics of the U.S. legal system. This is common in business schools, and we’re trying to get people used to this type of curriculum in the law setting.”
The accelerated LL.M. program is open only to foreign lawyers and will emphasize “the importance of the role of the lawyers as a strategic advisor in business,” the school said in a written statement.
The program includes 20 credit hours that can be taken during two consecutive six-week sessions over the summer, or split into two six-week sessions over two summers. Although the classroom instruction will last for 12 weeks, the program includes an additional three weeks for exams.
via Northwestern Offers Foreign Students a Fast Track LL.M..
Law.com – LegalTech New York: That’s a Wrap
LegalTech New York felt like a user conference this year. Although the messages sent from vendors were mixed, a number of threads appeared that set the tone for the show and marked a direction for the new year: full speed ahead.
Consumers of online legal research received long-awaited news. Both LexisNexis and Thomson Reuters dramatically changed the way users interface with legal research tools. What took them so long? Technology has finally caught up with the way users search for legal information and where they would like to be when they find it.
End users are accustomed to using intuitive search interfaces that accept natural-language queries and return relevant results in a prioritized list with the most relevant document on top. You can call that Bing-like or Google-like, but you will soon call it WestSearch, which uses assets such as the Key Number System, KeyCite, secondary sources, and headnotes, as well as transactional data, e.g., whether other users have printed or saved a document to a folder.
LexisNexis teamed with Microsoft to put legal research into the tools legal professionals use every day. Lexis for Microsoft lets you engage legal research tasks within Microsoft Outlook, Word, and SharePoint Server. According to Brian Zeve, managing director of Microsoft's Professional Services Industry, the technology was not there before. Now Microsoft Office 2007 and 2010, along with SharePoint 2010, can be used as development platforms to incorporate LexisNexis legal research tools into the applications attorneys use every day.
Relationship databases the new target for e-discovery :: PublicTechnology.net :: e-Government & public sector IT news + job vacancies:
IT professionals should be aware of a rather nasty new trend. Customer, citizen and employee relationship databases were the most common target for e-discovery-based information-gathering for litigation purposes last year.
According to IDC, among 115 litigation support and legal technology operations professionals found that the number of respondents experiencing more than 100 law suits over the last year rose to 46% from 27% in 2008.
A huge 70% of those questioned were involved in international litigation, with the most popular disputes centring on employee termination and intellectual property, which tied for first place. Investigations under the US Foreign Corrupt Practices Act and product liability claims were joint third, while insurance claims came in fifth.
The top three regions where enterprises needed to conduct investigations as well as preserve and collect data were European Union member states, followed by Canada and North Asia, which includes Japan, South Korea and China.
Brief for India’s outsourcing lawyers: keep it cheap – Times Online
Nestled amid the bustle of north Mumbai, the headquarters of Pangea3, one of India’s biggest legal outsourcing companies, is enough to give a British corporate lawyer used to the slick environs of the City or Canary Wharf the heebie-jeebies.
On the street outside, manual scavengers pick through the morning garbage while hawkers throng the sidestreets. Inside, the scene is just as alien — more reminiscent of the bridge of the Starship Enterprise than of a traditional London law firm.
Hardly anybody is wearing a suit, there are no private offices and there is not a wood-panelled boardroom in sight.
Instead, an army of young Indian graduates, most of them from the country’s top law and engineering schools, sits before a barrage of computer terminals. Many are working on legal documents digitally accessed from the servers of blue-chip Western clients via transcontinental fibreoptic cables. Others are engaged in research for upcoming litigation to be fought out in American courtrooms, or are analysing patent filings registered by British companies.
Most striking, perhaps, are the collection of giant Perspex tubes that tower above the large open-plan office. Accessible via spiral staircases, they contain raised meeting rooms. Together with the fingerprint scanners that operate the locks on the doors, they lend the premises a sci-fi feel. This may be fitting: if Sanjay Kamlani, the firm’s co-chief executive (and one of the few workers wearing a tie) is right, this is the future of the corporate legal profession.
t is a vision that could radically change Britain’s legal industry.
Much of the work that Pangea3 and similar firms deal with, such as drafting derivatives contracts or conducting due diligence for mergers and acquisitions, was once the preserve of trainees and associates at big City law firms. Some of those firms racked up annual revenues of more than £1 billion during the boom years, in part by billing out teams of junior lawyers for up to £300 an hour for even the most routine tasks.
However, those firms, in a drive to cut costs, are beginning to send that sort of work to cheaper jurisdictions, such as India, South Africa and the Philippines.
Whereas a new recruit at a “magic circle” firm in London can expect a starting salary of about £60,000 — rising to more than £90,000 at the best paid firms — Pangea3 can pay a good Indian law graduate as little as £350,000 rupees (£4,700) a year.
That sort of cost-saving has proved compelling in the wake of the economic downturn and is causing demand for Indian outsourcing providers to soar. Studies suggest that there are as many as 10,000 lawyers in the country working for outsourcing providers, and total revenues in the sector are expected to double this year to $1 billion (£613 million) and rise to $4 billion within five years.
Turnover at Pangea3 doubled in 2009, and Mr Kamlani expects a similar increase this year. The company’s investors include Sequoia, the venture capital group that backed Google. Its clients include several leading Wall Street banks.t is a vision that could radically change Britain’s legal industry.
Much of the work that Pangea3 and similar firms deal with, such as drafting derivatives contracts or conducting due diligence for mergers and acquisitions, was once the preserve of trainees and associates at big City law firms. Some of those firms racked up annual revenues of more than £1 billion during the boom years, in part by billing out teams of junior lawyers for up to £300 an hour for even the most routine tasks.
However, those firms, in a drive to cut costs, are beginning to send that sort of work to cheaper jurisdictions, such as India, South Africa and the Philippines.
Whereas a new recruit at a “magic circle” firm in London can expect a starting salary of about £60,000 — rising to more than £90,000 at the best paid firms — Pangea3 can pay a good Indian law graduate as little as £350,000 rupees (£4,700) a year.
That sort of cost-saving has proved compelling in the wake of the economic downturn and is causing demand for Indian outsourcing providers to soar. Studies suggest that there are as many as 10,000 lawyers in the country working for outsourcing providers, and total revenues in the sector are expected to double this year to $1 billion (£613 million) and rise to $4 billion within five years.
Turnover at Pangea3 doubled in 2009, and Mr Kamlani expects a similar increase this year. The company’s investors include Sequoia, the venture capital group that backed Google. Its clients include several leading Wall Street banks.
via Brief for India’s outsourcing lawyers: keep it cheap – Times Online.
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